PBR to resume on television with Unleash The Beast Event

Thursday

Apr 23, 2020 at 7:34 PM

Professional Bull Riders will return to live competition Saturday and Sunday amid strict safety guidelines around the coronavirus pandemic.

Presented by Monster Energy, the 2020 PBR season resumes following a five-week hiatus with the PBR Las Vegas Invitational as a closed-to-the-public, live television event inside Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

The PBR circuit is the world’s biggest stage in professional bull riding. Fans can watch the event on CBS Sports Network and RidePass at 6 p.m. ET Saturday and live at noon ET Sunday.

The invitational will feature Monster Energy rider Jose Vitor Leme looking to expand on his current lead in 2020 World Championship rankings, alongside the sport’s top athletes and bucking bulls.

All athletes and crew members will be following strict functional separation, social distancing and self-isolation protocols approved by local, county and state officials to ensure PBR’s safety measures are followed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It took every aspect of the ‘Be Cowboy’ mantra to get us to this point. Cowboy ingenuity, cowboy grit and the no-quit cowboy attitude will bring PBR events back to life as one of the world’s first sports to return to competition,” said Sean Gleason, CEO of PBR in a message to fans announcing the organization’s return-to-action plan.

Presented by Monster Energy, the Unleash the Beast Series is the elite series of the Professional Bull Riders. When the gates crack open at Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, 41 days will have passed since the last official event of this year’s series.

“Since Be Cowboy is our motto, we take the coronavirus pandemic very seriously,” Gleason said in his message to fans. “We’ve approached this with a detailed, thoughtful and intelligent plan that took into consideration any and all interactions among our constituents. We developed a comprehensive safety and wellness plan that has been reviewed and approved by city of Guthrie, Logan County, and Oklahoma state officials.”

Leme comes into the Unleash The Beast event as the world’s top-ranked athlete with a 72.5-point lead in the 2020 World Championship race. It won’t be a walk in the park since he has been recovering from a rib injury while attempting to ride The Right Stuff in Kansas City, Missouri, Feb. 29.